Ahhhh, Pirate Day! After talking to some great friends this week, I’ve realized my biggest annoyance this year has been the lack of personalization I’ve been able to infuse into my curriculum.  It’s a combination of things, really, including a different class make-up, district mandates, and the roll out of the new standards.  That’s probably why I haven’t uploaded post after post of pictures of all the creative goings-on in my classroom…because it’s just been harder to accomplish this year.  However, this past week, I was twelve kinds of determined to do bring sexy back to the classroom!  Again 🙂  Starting with Pirate Day!

I stapled a note in my students’ planners on Monday, stating that Thursday would be Dress-Like-A-Pirate Day to accompany our study of /ar/ this week in our reading series. My kids seriously looked *amazing* in their swashbuckling gear!  I probably had about 90% participation, and wish I could show you a class pic of me crew!   A little pumpkin even brought in this sassy little flag which I pinned to our ceiling tile art:

We weren’t able to accomplish everything in my Pirate Mark activity pack, but made time for the craftivity and reading and highlighting /ar/ words in the poem with a friend.

Then, it was right on to Dr. Seuss’ birthday – a great way to kick off the upcoming Read Across America Week! We read Oh The Thinks We Can Think!  – an absolutely *fantastic* story for inspiring the imagination and engaging my students.  They looooooved illustrating their visualizations as we read, and coming up with outrageous “thinks” of their own…

Afterwards, I told the kiddos that they were going to channel Dr. Seuss and write about and illustrate their own crazy “think.”  While they wrote, I passed out some brightly colored *Seuss Food* to help them think and illustrate like this very colorful author…

My Seuss Food may or may not have been remnants of our 100 Days supply for cereal necklaces 😉

After writing and drawing our “thinks,” the kiddos assembled a Seuss-like bird found in the book.   I think they turned out precious!  And, yes, I did a LOT of pre-cutting…or they would still be assembling them at this very moment.  Just a different class 🙂

If this looks like something you’d like to do with your kiddos, you can get the whole mini-unit in my TpT shop FOR FREE!  It includes seven different activities inspired by the book Oh the Thinks You Can Think!  Click on the pic below for your own copy!

Lastly, thanks for checking in on us here in KY!  Friday was *very* scary, and I raced home from school to be with Becks before the weather became tornadic.  We spent 2 hours in my inlaws basement before the storm passed, and B stayed at work north of the storm.  Fortunately, the northern part of my county was sparred, but the southern part took quite the beating 🙁  Our custodian lost his home and both vehicles, and several casualties were reported out of that area.  Our community has pooled together quickly, and fundraisers, aid, and supplies are in abundance.  Please keep KY, IN, and OH in your prayers this week as the recovery efforts go underway. Have a great week, y’all!